The Oracle's Queen (13 page)

Niryn did not regret his lowly birth; quite the opposite, in fact. Those early years had left an indelible mark on him and taught him some valuable lessons about how the world worked.

His father had been a simple, taciturn man who'd married above himself. Born to a family of tanners, his marriage had allowed him to leave behind that malodorous
trade and become one of Queen Agnalain's gardeners. His mother had been a chambermaid in the Old Palace, often working in the rooms of the queen before Agnalain went mad.

His parents lived in a tiny thatch-roofed cottage by the north gate. Each day his mother woke him while the stars were still out and they set off with his father up the long, steep road to the Palatine. They left their own humble quarter in darkness, and he could see the sky brightening as they ascended the steep streets. The houses grew larger and grander, the higher you went, and once inside the Palatine itself, it was like a great, magical garden. Elegant villas clustered around the walls and ringed the dark bulk of the Old Palace. There had been only one, back then, and it had been a lively place, filled with color and courtiers and good smells; it didn't fall into disrepair until Erius had left it behind, after his mother's death. The young prince could not abide the place after that, fearing his mother's mad, vengeful ghost would come after him in the night. Years later, when Niryn had gained the young king's trust and access to his inner thoughts, he learned why. Erius had killed his mother, smothering the mad old woman with a cushion after he learned that she'd signed an order for his own execution and that of her infant daughter, having decided they were both conspiring against her.

But when Niryn was a child, the Old Palace was still a wondrous place, with fine tapestries on the walls of the rooms and hallways, and fancy patterns of colored stone on the floor. Some of the corridors even had long, narrow pools, filled with flowering water plants and darting silver-and-red fish, set into the floors. One of the understewards had taken a liking to the red-haired boy and let him give crumbs to the fish. He was also taken with the palace guards. They were all tall, and wore rich red tabards, with handsome swords at their hip. Niryn secretly wished he
might grow up to be a guard so he could carry a sword like that and stand watching the fish all day.

He often saw Queen Agnalain, a gaunt, pale woman with hard blue eyes, who strode like a man in her fine gowns and always seemed to have a group of handsome young men around her. Sometimes she had the young prince with her, too, a boy a bit older than Niryn. Erius, he was called, and he had curly black hair and laughing black eyes and his own pack of playmates called the Royal Companions. Niryn envied him, not for his fine clothes or even his title, but for those friends. Niryn didn't have time to play, and no one to play with if he had.

He sometimes went in with his mother very early in the morning to bring the queen the ale and black bread she broke her fast with each day. Soldier's food, his mother called it, disapproving. Niryn didn't see why it wasn't a proper breakfast for a queen. She sometimes gave him the crusts the queen didn't eat and he liked it very much; it was dense and moist, rich with salt and black syrup; much nicer than the thin oatcakes the cooks gave him to eat.

“That sort of food might be good enough on the battlefield, maybe, when she was still a warrior!” his mother sniffed, as if the great queen disappointed her.

She got the same look on her face at the way there was often a young lord in the queen's bed in the morning. Niryn never saw the same one twice. His mother didn't approve of this, either, but she never said a word, and cuffed him on the ear when he asked if they were all the queen's husbands.

During the day the corridors teemed with men and women in wonderful clothes and glittering jewels, but he and his mother had to turn and face the wall as they passed. They were not allowed to speak to their betters or attract any attention. A servant's duty was to be invisible as air, his mother told him, and the child soon learned to do just that. And that was just how the lords and ladies treated him, and his mother and all the host of other servants who
moved among them, carrying the nobles' dirty linen and night soil buckets.

The queen had noticed him once, though, when his mother didn't pull him back in time to avoid her notice. Agnalain loomed over him and bent down for a closer look. She smelled of flowers and leather.

“You have a fox's coat. Are you a little fox?” she chuckled, running her fingers gently through his red curls. Her voice was hoarse, but kind, and those dark blue eyes wrinkled up at the corners when she smiled. He'd never gotten a smile like that from his own mother.

“And such eyes!” said the queen. “You'll do great things, with eyes like that. What do you want to do when you're all grown up?”

Encouraged by her kindly manner, he'd pointed shyly at a nearby guard. “I want to be one of them and carry a sword!”

Queen Agnalain laughed. “Would you now? Would you cut off the heads of all the traitors who creep in to murder me?”

“Yes, Majesty, every one,” he replied at once. “And I'll feed the fish, too.”

W
hen Niryn was big enough to carry a watering can, his visits inside the palace came to an end. His father took him to work in the gardens. The great lords and ladies treated the gardeners as if they were invisible, too, but his father did the same with them. He cared nothing for people, and was shy and backward even with Niryn's sharp-tongued mother. Niryn had really never paid the man much mind, but he discovered now that his father was full of secret knowledge.

He was not patient or any less taciturn, but he taught the boy how to tell a flower seedling from a weed sprout, how to bind an espaliered fruit tree into a pleasing shape against a wall, how to spot disease, and when to thin a bed or prune a bush to make it flourish. Niryn missed the fish,
but discovered that he had a talent for such things and a child's ready interest. He especially liked using the big bronze shears to cut away dead branches and wayward shoots.

There was still no time to play or make friends. Instead, he came to love seeing the garden change through the seasons. Some plants died without constant tending, while weeds thrived and spread if you didn't fight them every day.

N
o one realized Niryn was wizard-born until he was ten years old. One day several of Erius' Companions decided to amuse themselves by throwing stones at the gardener's boy.

Niryn was pruning a rose arbor at the time and tried his best to ignore them. Invisible. He must remain invisible, even when it was perfectly apparent that the sneering young lords could see him very well and had excellent aim. Even if they'd been peasants like him, he wouldn't have fought back. He didn't know how.

He'd endured taunts and teasing from them before, but had always ducked his head and looked away, pretending he wasn't there. Deep down, though, something dark stirred, but he'd been too well trained to his station to acknowledge anything like anger toward his betters.

But this was different. Today they weren't just taunting him. He kept at his pruning, carefully lifting the suckers away and trying not to let the long thorns pierce his fingers. His father was just beyond the arbor, weeding a flower bed. Niryn saw him glance over, then go back to his work. There was nothing he could do for Niryn.

Stones pattered around the boy, striking his feet and bouncing off the wooden trellis next to his head. It scared him, for they were trained to be warriors and could probably hurt him badly if they wanted to. It made him feel small and helpless, but something else stirred again, deep down in his soul, and this time it was much stronger.

“Hey, gardener's boy!” one of his tormentors called out. “You make a good target.”

A stone followed the taunt, striking him between the shoulders. Niryn hissed in pain and his fingers tightened on the rose cane he'd been trimming. Thorns pierced his fingers, drawing blood. He kept his head down, biting his lip.

“He didn't even feel it!” one of the other boys laughed. “Hey, you, what are you? An ox with a thick hide?”

Niryn bit his lip harder.
Stay invisible
.

“Let's see if he feels this.”

Another stone struck him on the back of the thigh, just below his tunic. It was a sharp one and it stung. He ignored it, nipping a stray shoot with the shears, but now his heart was pounding in a way he'd never felt before.

“Told you. Just like an ox, stupid and thick!”

Another stone hit him in the back, and another.

“Turn around, little red ox. We need your face for a target!”

A stone hit him in the back of the head, hard enough to make him drop his shears. Unable to help himself, he reached back and felt the stinging place where the stone had hit him. His fingers came away smeared with blood.

“That got him! Hit him again, harder, and see if he'll turn.”

Niryn could see his father, still pretending he didn't know what was happening to his son. It came to Niryn, then, what the real gulf between commoner and noble was. Niryn had been taught to respect his betters, but he'd never fully appreciated until now that the respect was not returned. These boys knew they had power over him and delighted in using it.

A larger stone hit him on the arm as he bent to retrieve the shears.

“Turn around, red ox! Let's hear you bellow!”

“Throw another one!”

Something larger hit him in the head, hard enough to
daze him. Niryn dropped the shears again and fell to his knees. He wasn't quite certain what happened after that, until he opened his eyes and found himself lying under the arbor he'd been tending, watching unnatural blue flames devouring the carefully tended vines.

His father did come then, dragging Niryn away from the scorching blaze.

“What've you done, boy?” he whispered, more alarmed than Niryn had ever seen the man. “What in the name of the Maker did you do?”

Niryn sat up slowly and looked around. A small crowd was gathering, servants and nobles alike, while others ran for water. The three boys who'd been tormenting him were gone.

Water had no effect on the blue fire. It continued to burn until the arbor was reduced to ash.

Guardsmen came with the water carriers and their captain demanded to know what had happened. Niryn couldn't answer them because he had no idea. His father remained dumb, as usual. At last a broad-shouldered man pushed through the crowd, dragging one of Niryn's attackers by the ear. The young lord cringed beside him.

“I understand this young rascal was using you for target practice,” the soldier said to Niryn, still holding the boy almost up on his toes.

Even in such an embarrassing position, the boy was looking daggers at Niryn, letting him know what his fate would be if he told.

“Come on now, lad, find your tongue,” the man demanded. He wasn't angry with Niryn, it seemed, just impatient to complete an unpleasant task. “I'm Porion, swordmaster to the Royal Companions and I'm responsible for the behavior of the boys. Is he one of them who hurt you?”

Niryn's father caught his eye, silently warning Niryn to keep silent, stay invisible.

“I don't know. I had my back to 'em,” Niryn mumbled, staring down at his dirty clogs.

“You sure about that, lad?” Master Porion demanded sternly. “I had it from some of his fellows that he was one of them.”

He could feel Master Porion's eyes on him, but he kept his head down and saw the young lord's fine bootheels settle in the grass as the older man released him.

“All right then, Nylus, you get back to the practice yard where you belong. And don't think I won't keep an eye on you!” Porion barked. The young lord gave Niryn a last, triumphant smirk and strode away.

Porion remained a moment, staring pensively at the ruined arbor. “Word is you did this, lad. That the truth?”

Niryn shrugged. How could he? He didn't even have a flint.

Porion turned to his father, who'd been lingering nearby. “He's your boy?”

“Aye, sir,” his father mumbled, unhappy not to be invisible to this man.

“Any wizard blood in your family?”

“None that I know of, sir.”

“Well, you'd better get him to a proper wizard who can judge, and soon, before he does something worse than a little fire.”

Porion's face grew sterner still as he glanced back at Niryn. “I don't want him on the Palatine again. That's the queen's law. An unschooled wizard-born is too dangerous. Go on, take him away and get him seen to, before he hurts someone.”

Niryn looked up in disbelief. The other boy had gotten away with hurting him, and now
he
was to be punished? Throwing caution to the wind, he fell at Master Porion's feet. “Please, sir, don't send me off! I'll work hard and not make any more trouble, I swear by the Maker!”

Porion pointed to the ruined arbor. “Didn't mean to do that, either, did you?”

“I told you, I couldn't—!”

Suddenly his father's broad hand closed over his shoulder, yanking him to his feet. “I'll take charge of him, sir,” he told Porion. Gripping Niryn's thin arm, he marched his son like a criminal out of the gardens and away from the palace.

His mother beat him for losing his position and the small pay that went with it. “You've shamed the family!” she railed, bringing the belt down across his thin shoulders. “We'll all go hungry now, without the extra silver you brought home.”

His father stayed her hand at last and carried the sobbing boy up to his cot.

For the first time in Niryn's life, his father sat by his bed, looking down at him with something like actual interest.

“You don't remember nothing, son? Are you telling me the truth?”

“No, Dad, nothing, until I seen the arbor burning.”

His father sighed. “Well, you done it, putting yourself out of a position. Wizard-born?” He shook his head and Niryn's heart sank. Everyone knew what happened to those of their station unlucky enough to be born with a touch of wild power.